Not much to report really today as it was a fairly boring night unless you were trading Bitcoin, the Aussie dollar or you are the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia and will be secretly cheering the Aussies fall.
The main source of the quite trade elsewhere was the fact that it was Veteran’s Day in the US. But stocks were still open even though the ranges on the day in US stock markets belied that fact – clearly most traders took the day off. Anyway At the Close the Dow was up 0.09%, the Nasdaq rose 0.02% and the S&P 500 was unchanged at 1771.
In Europe however stocks were better bid with M&A in the UK buoying stocks across the Uk and the continent. The FTSE closed up 0.29%, the DAX rose 0.33% and in Paris the market recovered from the downgrade induced sell off Friday and the CAC was up 0.69%. Stocks in Milan rose 0.77% while in Spain they rose 0.44%.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange the SPI200 contract is up 24 points to 5424 bid so it should be a better day in trade today. On the bond markets the 3 years fell 2 points and the 10 years were 2.5 points lower.
FX markets were a bit more interesting with the Aussie dollar remaining under pressure falling to 0.9350 from a 0.9394 high yesterday. USDJPY was largely unchanged at 99.18, Sterling fell 0.12% to 1.5986 while the Euro pushed higher by 0.35% to 1.3408.
The Aussie continues to track down to the previous low around 0.9280 as you can see in the chart below.
I’m overly bearish yet but if this level doesn’t hold then the Aussie could be on a big round turn below 90 cents again.
On commodity markets Bitcoin continues to show amazing strength and sits at 372 this morning off a low around 318 overnight. This type of price action – and the percentage moves we are seeing – is a big impediment to it acceptance as a real currency and why I have it in the commodity section. You can mine it after all.
Elsewhere on commodity markets Nymex Crude rose 0.52% to 95.09, Gold slipped a smidge to $1281 while Silver dropped 1.53% to $21.37 oz. Corn’s recovery continued up 1.87%, wheat fell 0.54% and soybeans rose 0.15%.
Crude is an interesting one and if you trade it there are signs that it might be bottoming and have a good solid rally in it over the next few days and weeks.
Target 98.30 the 200 day moving average
On the data front NAB’s business survey is out today and it is the most important data series to be released in Australia each month so watch out not only for the headline, but the sub indices and what they tell you about employment and business. Bank Indonesia is out with its rate decision and then in Europe tonight we get a raft of CPI and PPI while in the US tonight we see the NFIB Business optimism index, Chicago Fed national activity index as well as the Redbook index.
Have a great day and good hunting
Greg McKenna, Vantage FX Currency Analyst
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